And mad scientists create a turduck, but using a turtle.

Sitting in the dung, staring at the stars. Most of us go out of our way to avoid a steaming pile of feces. But not dung beetles—these insects pile right in to get their share. The fierce competition is what forced the evolution of the dung beetle's most notable habit: creating a ball of excrement, and rolling it away from the pile in a straight line. That's easy to do when the Sun's out, but the beetles also manage to go straight at night. By fitting the beetles with the stylish little helmets shown above, researchers confirmed the animals go straight at night thanks to their ability to see the stars. And that's stars, plural—they don't rely on any one in particular, but instead navigate using the Milky Way as a whole.

Researchers skip the chicken, create a turduck (but it's not what you think). This bit of science is about as weird as it gets. It's possible to make a chimeric animal by grafting embryonic cells from one species into the embryo of another. So, for example, it's possible to see where adult organs originate by transplanting defined regions of a quail embryo into a chick, and see where the quail cells end up. But I'm not sure it ever occurred to anyone to ask, "hey, I wonder if you could mix a turtle and a duck?"

Spurred by the eternal question—"the feasibility of producing chimeras between animals of two different classes remains unclear"—researchers at the China Agricultural University decided to find out. And, given that it's an agricultural university, they used two species that are generally used for food: Chinese soft-shelled turtle and the Peking duck. Cells from both species ended up in the brain, spine, heart, and other organs of the developing embryo. The animals that hatched looked like turtles, but had indications of duck cells in a variety of tissues—including the gonads. No word on what happens when two of these chimeras mate.

Newsflash: people like sex. There's a potential for a conflict of interest here, since the makers of Trojan condoms sponsored the study, but the results are pretty believable: people like sex. Or, as the researchers put it, "Participants consistently rated sex to be arousing and pleasurable whether or not they used condoms or lubricant." In fact, more than a quarter of the women in the survey weren't even sure if their partner's condom was lubricated. This is only one of a number of studies of this sort by these authors, as searching for this paper pulled out several, including one entitled "Pubic Hair Removal and Sexual Behavior."

Since I can't contribute financially, I'll contribute less in other ways, too. You might think that couples who live together without getting married would buck tradition. When it comes to housework, however, you'd be wrong. "What's the final frontier of gender equality," one of a new study's authors asks rhetorically, the answer apparently being "who cleans up." Contributions towards household chores broke down along traditional gender lines in these couples, even if the male half didn't have a job. "When men aren't working, they don't see domestic labor as a means of contributing. In fact, they double down and do less of it, since it challenges their masculinity," said one of the authors.

Reality is overrated. A variety of studies have shown that, once people start to believe in false information, it's really hard to get them to stop. Bringing up the error, even in the process of correcting it, ends up reinforcing it through repetition. So, some researchers decided to test this, using a real-time alter system that would overlay details on the accuracy of an article in place as it's being read.

Unfortunately, that didn't work either. "In contrast, individuals whose attitudes are supported by the inaccurate information distrust the source more when corrections are presented in real time, yielding beliefs comparable to those never exposed to a correction," the authors conclude.

In other words, if a website starts telling people what they want to believe is wrong, they'll just decide that the website is unreliable. Accuracy cannot win. Sigh.

Ars Science Video >

A celebration of Cassini

A celebration of Cassini

A celebration of Cassini

Nearly 20 years ago, the Cassini-Huygens mission was launched and the spacecraft has spent the last 13 years orbiting Saturn. Cassini burned up in Saturn's atmosphere, and left an amazing legacy.

I'm a grad student taking more than a full load while my partner is employed and taking a class. I absolutely do my part in cooking and cleaning (I do all the laundry and most of the cooking). It's what's fair.

If you read the abstract of the study, this was about working class couples (generally with less education), not a cross-spectrum analysis.

I'm a grad student taking more than a full load while my partner is employed and taking a class. I absolutely do my part in cooking and cleaning (I do all the laundry and most of the cooking). It's what's fair.

Personal anecdotes are pretty meaningless in scientific studies. I'm sure some percentage of the studies couples do share the load that way as well, the point is that most of them don't.

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Participants consistently rated sex to be arousing and pleasurable whether or not they used condoms or lubricant.

Well I sure as hell hope so. Our species would have gone extinct millennia ago if they didn't.

The misonformation/correction part upsets me. If we can't actually correct misconceptions, what do we do? Asides trying to get everyone really early in life?I know anecdotally that hardcore evangelical Christians often find that reality provides an immutable dilemma to their faith-as-supported-by-the-evangelical-right, but how can this conflict be introduced with other misconceptions/misunderstandings of reality, such as basic science literacy?

The person has to be open to changing their minds. Once they've decided that something is true, they'll probably cling to it like nothing else. This is why I look at almost everything without accepting it as gospel, always questioning my own beliefs. But some people find it easier to have blind faith. In that sense, it's nothing unusual. But the study at least brings up the point that even trying to convince these people that they may be mistaken is a waste of time. Which is really disappointing.

Wrong? It depends on who you talk to. Some people against interracial marriage and some don't. So there you go. I'm a bit old fashion, this turtle duck experiment is a bit off, to me it's immoral. Science or no science.

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I'm looking forward to seeing more of these Weird Science articles, I enjoyed it.

The misonformation/correction part upsets me. If we can't actually correct misconceptions, what do we do? Asides trying to get everyone really early in life?I know anecdotally that hardcore evangelical Christians often find that reality provides an immutable dilemma to their faith-as-supported-by-the-evangelical-right, but how can this conflict be introduced with other misconceptions/misunderstandings of reality, such as basic science literacy?

The misonformation/correction part upsets me. If we can't actually correct misconceptions, what do we do? ... but how can this conflict be introduced with other misconceptions/misunderstandings of reality, such as basic science literacy?

Science misconceptions actually start pretty early - see the work of Rosalind Driver with school children as a starting point. The general approach adopted in science education is to promote cognitive dissonance, typically by having students perform experiments that produce the opposite results from expectations. One example I've seen is heating an elastic that is extended by a weight, and watching it shrink instead of stretch further.

Other than that, past articles here (as well as at least one research study I've read) suggest the most powerful method for dislodging your misconception(s) is encountering someone who is not only like you, but that you like, who discusses the topic and, in the process, figures out the correct conception.

Other than that, past articles here (as well as at least one research study I've read) suggest the most powerful method for dislodging your misconception(s) is encountering someone who is not only like you, but that you like, who discusses the topic and, in the process, figures out the correct conception.

I'm a grad student taking more than a full load while my partner is employed and taking a class. I absolutely do my part in cooking and cleaning (I do all the laundry and most of the cooking). It's what's fair.

Personal anecdotes are pretty meaningless in scientific studies. I'm sure some percentage of the studies couples do share the load that way as well, the point is that most of them don't.

To be fair, the sample size of the study is only 30 couples, so one more couple added to the study could change the results by 3%. That's hardly anecdote proof statistics, even if it is interesting.

My original comment wasn't criticizing the study; collecting that amount of qualitative data is hard. I was just saying that even if that behavior happens in a majority of couples, that doesn't make it right.

As long as we're being pedantic (if not for which, let's face it, the Ars forums would be a fraction of their current size), not all of the *cough* "flying turtles" in Mario games can actually fly. Many can only bounce helplessly in a straight line, at least until they smack face-first into a wall or fall into a bottomless pit. There's a deep existential message in there somewhere, but this is probably not the time or place.

Anyway. I'd accept the term "winged turtles", but "flying turtles" is not entirely accurate.